The present invention relates generally to mail processing, and more particularly to a method, system and program product for providing backwards compatibility when replacing a camera subsystem with a newer camera subsystem in standard automated mail sorting equipment such as a Multi-Line Optical Character Recognition (MLOCR) mail sorter.
As automated mail sorting equipment ages the need to replace key components that may have become obsolete or reached the end of their useful life becomes a potential issue. One such component is the camera subsystem that is used to scan images of mail items. A camera subsystem typically connects to various other components of the mail sorting equipment such as the tachometer, the system control computer and the image processing subsystem etc. Replacing a camera subsystem, or just the camera with an equivalent model may not be possible or may be very expensive, because an equivalent subsystem, or an exact replacement model camera may not be available. In any sorting system utilizing a camera, the camera is a key component of the system and may serve as the basis for all sorting by the machine, with the camera utilized in performing address recognition, bar code recognition, or other processing based upon an image of the item to be sorted as “seen” through the lens of the camera, and then captured in digital form for digital processing.